Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy

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Theory and Practice of Counseling and
Psychotherapy

• Psych422
• Chapter8 Gestalt Therapy

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Questions?

• What key concepts do you know in terms of Gestalt
  therapy?

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View of Human Nature

• Self-reliance and reintegration
• Dialogue b/w client and therapist (therapist has
  no agenda
• Spontaneous here and now experience
• Human nature is rooted in existential philosophy,
  phenomenology, and field theory
• Individuals have the capacity to self-regulate in
  their environment
• The process of reowning parts of oneself that
  have been disowned

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The Now

• Existential Phenomenological it is grounded
  in the clients here and now
• Initial goal is for clients to gain awareness of
  what they are experiencing and doing now
• Promotes direct experiencing rather than the
  abstractness of talking about situations
• Rather than talk about a childhood trauma the
  client is encouraged to become the hurt child

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The Now

• Ask what and how instead of why
• Our power is in the present
• Nothing exists except the now
• The past is gone and the future has not yet
  arrived
• For many people, the power of the present is lost
• They may focus on their past mistakes or engage
  in endless resolutions and plans for the future

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Unfinished Business

• Feelings about the past are unexpressed
• These feelings are associated with distinct
  memories and fantasies
• Feelings not fully experienced linger in the
  background and interfere with effective contact
• Pay attention on the bodily experience because if
  feelings are unexpressed they tend to result in
  physical symptom
• Result
• Preoccupation, compulsive behavior, wariness
  oppressive energy and self-defeating behavior
• Solution get in touch with the stuck point.

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Contact and Resistances to Contact

• CONTACT interacting with nature and with other
  people without losing ones individuality
• Contact (connect) and Withdrawal (separate)
• RESISTANCE TO CONTACT the defenses we develop
  to prevent us from experiencing the present fully
• Five major channels of resistance
• Introjection Deflection
• Projection Confluence
• Retroflection

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Contact and Resistances to Contact

• Introjection uncritically accept others belief
  and standards without thinking whether they are
  congruent with who we are
• Projection the reverse of introjection we
  disown certain aspect of ourselves by assigning
  them to the environment
• Retroflection turning back to ourselves what we
  would like to do to someone else
• Directing aggression inward that we are fearful
  to directing toward others.

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Contact and Resistances to Contact

• Deflection A way of avoiding contact and
  awareness by being vague or indirect.
• e.g., overuse of humor
• Confluence less differentiation between the self
  and the environment.
• e.g., a need to be accepted---to stay safe by
  going alone with other and not expressing ones
  true feeling and opinions.
• Clients are encouraged to become increasingly
  aware of their dominant style of blocking contact

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Questions

• Please provide examples for each five resistance
  to contact?

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Energy and blocks to energy

• Pay attention to where energy is located, how it
  is used, and how it can be blocked
• Blocked energy (resistance)
• Tension some part of the body numbing feelings,
  looking away from people when speaking, speaking
  with a restricted voice
• Recognize how their resistance is being expressed
  in their body
• Exaggerate their tension and tightness in order
  to discover themselves

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Therapeutic Goals

• Increasing Awareness and greater choice
• Awareness includes knowing the environment,
  knowing oneself, accepting oneself, and being
  able to make contact.
• Stay with their awareness, unfinished business
  will emerge.

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Therapists function and Role

• Increase clients awareness
• Pay attention to the present moment
• Pay attention to clients body language,
  nonverbal language, and inconsistence b/w verbal
  and nonverbal message (e.g., anger and smile)
• I message

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Clients Experience in Therapy

• Therapist ? no interpretation
• Client ? making their own interpretation
• Three-stage (Polster, 1987)
• Discovery (increasing awareness)
• Accommodation (recognizing that they have a
  choice)
• Assimilation (influencing their environment)

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Relationship Between Therapist and Client

• The quality of therapist-client relationship
• Therapists knowing themselves
• Therapists share their experience to clients in
  the here-and-now
• Therapist? Use of self in therapy

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Therapeutic techniques and procedures

• The experiential work
• Use experiential work in therapy to work through
  the stuck points and get new insights
• Preparing client for experiential work
• Get permission from clients
• Be sensitive to the cultural difference (e.g.,
  Asian cultural value emotional control)
• Respect resistance (e.g., express emotions?fear
  of lose control, could not stop, or weakness)

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Therapeutic techniques and procedures

• Increase awareness about the incongruence between
  mind and body (verbal and nonverbal expression)
• The internal dialogue exercise
• Making the rounds
• Rehearsal exercise
• Exaggeration exercise
• Staying with the feeling
• The Gestalt approach to dream work

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Therapeutic techniques and procedures

• The internal dialogue exercise
• Top dog (critical parent) and underdog (victim)
• Empty-chair (two sides of themselves)
• Making the rounds
• Go around to each person and say What makes it
  hard for me trust you is
• Rehearsal exercise
• Reverse the typical style (e.g., behave as
  negative as possible)

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Therapeutic techniques and procedures

• Rehearsal exercise
• May get stuck when rehearsing silently or
  internally
• Share the rehearsals out load with a therapist
• Exaggeration exercise
• Exaggerate gesture or movement, which usually
  intensified the feelings attached to the behavior
  and makes the inner meaning clearer.
• Staying with the feeling
• Go deeper into the feelings they wish to avoid

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Therapeutic techniques and procedures

• The Gestalt approach to dream work
• Not interpret or analyze dreams
• Bring dream back to life as though they were
  happening now
• The dream is acted out in the present to become
  different parts of the dream
• Projection every person or object in the dream
  represents a projected aspect of the dreamer.
• Royal road to integration
• Dreams serve as an excellent way to discover
  personality
• No remember-?refuse to face what it is at that
  time

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From a multicultural perspective

• Contributions
• Work with clients from their cultural
  perspectives
• Limitations
• Focus on affect
• Asian cultural value emotional control
• Prohibiting to directly express the negative
  feelings to their parents.

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Summary and Evaluation

• Contributions
• Present-centered awareness
• Pay attention on verbal and nonverbal cures
• Bring conflicts or struggles to actually
  experience their conflict and struggles
• Focus on growth and enhancement
• See each aspect of a dream as a projection of
  themselves
• Increase awareness of what is
• Empirical validation for the effectiveness

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Summary and Evaluation

• Limitations
• Ineffective therapists may manipulate the clients
  with powerful experiential work
• Some people may need psycho-education